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Elena Brower

Founder and Co-Owner, Virayoga

We are celebrating our 10-year anniversary at Virayoga, along with Schuyler Grant of Kula Yoga.We opened in the same year (right after 9/11) and it just such an incredible honor to be here as a presence in the New York yoga community – serving, teaching, practicing.

In the past year, I met Lauren Zander, the co-founder of a company called the Handel Group®.And coming from a tradition of Anusara® yoga, where the alignment is incredibly impeccable and precise, the focus on the heart is of the upmost importance; we're teaching people how to open up their bodies cellularly, organically and really naturally. I was doing that but I wasn’t able to bring that opening into my life in a way that was satisfying to me – I was still not behaving myself and keeping my promises and telling the truth in a way that was making any sense. To have found Lauren and the Handel Group and the Handel Method™ has been a huge shift in the way that I teach, the way that I think, the way that I live, and the way that I practice and study.

What I can offer to the world and to this New York City yoga community right now is the best of my capacity to tell the truth, to speak my own truth, to offer it in a way that is relevant and pertinent and accessible and also sweet, loving and inspiring to anyone who is in my classes … I have this burning desire to make sure that as many people do yoga and feel good in their bodies as possible. That’s my mission – I hope you'll join me.